Shapeshifters: Why They Were Discontinued | League of Legends

hey guys just want to make a quick announcement that this video is brought to you by squarespace once again it's one of the best platforms for creating online stores and websites so stay tuned to find out more later in the video the league of legends community tends to agree that some of the new champions are very overloaded having way too much stuff in the kit compared to champions of old and at first glance it's hard to disagree with that statement if you were to compare aphelios or jonah to the likes of garen and blitzcrank you'd be hard-pressed to believe they're even in the same game but there were a few champions that were around even way back in the day that gave off the same impression of overloaded kits notably because they had twice the number of abilities today we're going to be talking about shapeshifters in league of legends and discussing why they're no longer being developed anymore shape-shifting is as it sounds a shape that shifts or changes archetypally speaking shapeshifters are characters with the ability to alter their existing form and in video games that can extend beyond their appearance affecting their gameplay and even playstyles in league of legends there's a small group of champions that possess the ability to transform which grant them a new set of abilities depending on what form they're in at the time of this video's recording we have only six jace elise nidalee kled reksai and nar to varying degrees each of them have two distinct forms that they swap between either voluntarily or by force which carry their own playstyles too now there has been debate around if some other champions would fit under this category too like kane viego and shyvana technically speaking even though shyvana's dragon form is a physical transformation there's no real difference in how she plays her dragon forms q w and e are more reminiscent of empowered abilities such as karma's mantra pantheon's mortal will rengar's ferocity or renekton's fury diego does have the ability to transform and acquire new abilities but given that he turns into other champions those abilities are not his own so he's not a genuine shapeshifter copycat is a better word lastly kane doesn't count as a shape-shifter since he has the same basic abilities whether he goes rost or shadow assassin that and he's permanently in that form for the rest of the game not allowed to swap between the two for the sake of this video i'm going to be focusing on champions that actively switch between different forms and yes i will touch on the felios later so bear with me for a bit even though they play vastly differently from each other and come equipped with varying tools there are some design similarities between each one namely the three original shape shifters for one they usually swap between ranged and melee with the ranged form taking precedence over melee in the neutral game while the melee form is designed for bursts or all ins at the current moment there's no shapeshifter with two mutually exclusive playstyles their two forms are designed to work around each other that said the power budget distributed between the two forms is not uniform there's usually one that's marginally better in either pressure or impact for jace his melee form is considered the stronger of the two nidalee and elise's animal form as well nar's mega form is obviously the stronger one same for clyde's mounted versus dismounted and rek's eyes on broad form is of course the one with more damage for those who can shift between their two forms at will it costs them an ability slot which is usually their ultimate meaning they don't have access to a conventional ultimate the way normal champions do i mean that's fair considering they have six basic abilities instead of three so they naturally have strong early and mid games where base numbers and stats are more important however it comes at the cost of shapeshifters usually falling off towards the late game even though they have more abilities than normal champions there's never a point in time where they can use all of them in concert and those abilities are individually weaker to even out the fact that these champions have two queues two w's two e's etc this does apply to rek'sai nar and kled 2. each of them have ultimates but they do fall off in the same way despite this dismounted clutter and mini gnar are more of a handicap than in actual form and rek'sai's w is her transformation so she still pays the ability cost one that isn't made up by her ultimate okay exposition aside the title of the video says why they disappeared they always were a niche archetype but shapeshifters were well known for being dynamic and versatile picks that had very high skill ceilings and good presence in both solo queue and pro play lately though it feels like it's been forever since we've seen one the last shapeshifter was clud back in mid season six over five years ago unlike wardens and poke champions existing shapeshifters have enjoyed relative popularity and there are countless places where i could take inspiration from when it comes to making new ones so you would think they would jump on any chance they can get to make more shapeshifters or at least one or two more within the past decade i'm not sure if this is their reasoning but i went through all the answers i could think of and i believe i have a good theory behind why they abruptly stopped making them long story short is because shapeshifters are a really big headache to design and maintain because of the way league of legends was structured due to having two different sets of abilities it makes them extremely hard to design by default without running into both play style and balance issues since you're only allowed to have one set of equipment the two forms have to be congruent most of the time in other games you'll run into a character or class that has two different stances usually an attack stance and defense stance good example of this would be aegis who has a shield form and sword form with vastly different play styles the reason it's allowed to work is because aegis slash's base stats change between his two forms allowing it to be effective as both a wall and sweeper it's pretty much like fighting two different pokemon matter of fact it was so broken it was one of the very very select few non-legendary pokemon to have the distinct honor of being placed in uber's tier and for those of you who have no experience with competitive pokemon ubers is the highest tier in pokemon and not an official competitive format essentially their band it's almost exclusively home to the big legendaries like rayquaza dialga and mewtwo when you see a non-legendary pokemon like you just slash in ubers that's when you know something is seriously busted about them i say all this because shapeshifters are inherently difficult to design fairly no matter what game they're in but back to league of legends in this game items play a huge role in determining a champion's playstyle the bulk of their power comes from items and not base stats therefore the concept of defense converting into offense is close to impossible to pull off since your items stay the same irrespective of what form you're in jace elise and italy for instance are typically seen building full damage and even though the three have severed ranged and melee forms they play as assassins or skirmishers and their ranged abilities consist of poke damage and or setup such as elise's cocoon jace's shock blast or nidalee's javelin toss in reksai's case her borrowed form is more for utility while her unborrowed form is for damage if you were to make the suggestion that shapeshifters should have two separate item sets that would also not be a good idea because it effectively makes them the most overpowered champions in the game even though you have to give up an ability slot to change forms which is usually the ultimate your total ability selection almost doubles and more importantly so does the number of options you have if you're under a lot of heavy fire you can switch to your tank form and soak up all that damage then switch back to damage form and wipe the floor with everyone it's the only thing preventing shapeshifters from completely breaking the game and they're already tough enough to balance that applies for other types of combinations if separate inventories were enabled it would give way to a bunch of different design themes that would all turn into val's nightmares you could have a shape-shifter with one form dealing physical damage while the other does magic you can have one form b artillery mage and the other form is a diver you might have an enchanter that can turn into an assassin i'm guessing a lot of you are about to go into the comment section and say what about nar he has a squishy pokey evasive dps form and a hard engage all in tanky burst form correct but even though he has differing play styles they're not equal in capacity like i said before everyone knows meganar is vastly stronger and more dangerous than mini gnar which is why it lasts only 15 seconds the base that changes depending on what form are the closest thing you can get to playstyle differences in this game but most of the time nara builds a mixture of health damage and durability to prioritize his megaform almost never does he build on hit dps the way his fellow yordles teemo or kennan might on occasion sure a plausible solution to allowing mutually exclusive playstyles would be to lessen the individual strength of each form but that's exactly what causes champions like azir to be in the state that he's in he's simply too good at too many things he's got ranged dps he's got engaged he's got disengage he's got zone control he's got poke damage he has siege potential he has waveclear all of this stuff makes it so he has to have one of the worst early game experiences of all time to make it difficult to reach that master of all status if you expand onto champions options balance dictates that those options have to be lower in efficiency or at least much harder to achieve to keep them fair additionally nowadays a champion's playstyle greatly revolves around a singular gimmick if you compare the three modern shapeshifters with the three old ones what is one thing that puts nar reksai and kled apart from jace elise and nidalee the answer is a main form nar's transformation is obligatory and happens whenever his rage team fills up to max even though he stays mining r for most of the game his main form is meganar which has the bulk of his pressure and impact minionard's kit is designed to allow him to safely stack up that rage hence why he has long range poke a movement speed buff and escape tool clutch transformation is also obligatory and happens whenever scarlet is depleted of its health his main form is when he's mounted and carries most of the power in his kit this mounted clud has only one real option get back on skarl as quickly as possible make no mistake he can still do some pretty serious damage with pocket pistol and violent tendencies but we all know his main form is when he's mounted rek'sai can transform voluntarily but her strength lies in her unburrowed form that's where all her damage is and such on occasion she might use voice seeker to lock onto someone far away so she can use her ultimate but for the most part her broad form's primary function is to get her around places faster and keep an eye out for enemies with tremor sense the reason i mentioned the main form is because even though shape shifters have been pretty much discontinued they do have a sort of spiritual successor a few new champions bears some semblance of shape shifting in their kit but rather than giving them a completely new set of abilities and attributes it would be more or less an extension of their current gameplay kane ofelios kiana and rel each of these champions have a gameplay altering property without exactly changing their form aphelios would be the most noteworthy of the four the reason i didn't include him in the list of shapeshifters is because the only thing that changes is the weapon he uses to auto attack he doesn't go from range to melee nor does he have two different play styles regardless of what he's equipped with at what time he still plays like a backline 80 carry if that makes sense but we shouldn't discount the significance of his five weapons each bearing its own unique function calibrum specializes in long range attacks sevrum is for lifesteal graviton is for lockdown infernum is for aoe damage and crest and dumb is for dps while he handles fights in mostly the same way the different types of weapons vastly affect the outcome or trajectory of a battle his main form is just you know him a felius doesn't turn into a humongous raging kaiju thing of meduhiki he just switches his weapons different from jaisu goes from range to melee this approach allows him to tap into the shape-shifting theme without having to face nearly the same number of balance problems as traditional ones what i mean by that is if a shapeshifter is overperforming it's pretty dang hard to pinpoint exactly what is causing that over performance people might complain that chase's burst damage and hammer form is way too strong but his canon form has two things that can be responsible for that too transform mercury cannon causes his next attack to slash his target's armor and magic resist by a pretty significant amount and hypercharge can also empower his melee attacks too those might be the real problem and not actually chase's melee abilities vice versa if it feels like his ranged form is a bit too oppressive it may not be the canon's abilities but perhaps his melee form's ability to regenerate mana or because of how hard it is to engage on him thanks to thundering blow being an instant get off me tool don't get me wrong similar situations can definitely and have definitely happened for the likes of aphelios but because his playstyle doesn't change completely it's easier to ascertain which weapons are over performing even down to the two combinations you guys remember all those clips of inferno moonlight vigil exploding entire teams because they would take damage from the initial blast but then the splash damage from all of their teammates those seem like a pretty obvious question of numbers since his ultimate is dependent of everything else that's one more thing having an ultimate actually makes it easier to balance a champion for 95 of the roster your ultimate is your strongest ability and it also holds a large portion of your power budget therefore if a champion has an absurdly high win rate the most reasonable place to start your search would be their ultimate without a major ability it's much more difficult to buff or nerf shape shifters because you might be targeting the wrong part of their kit mind you i'm not saying aphelios wasn't a balanced nightmare during season 10 he's probably more confusing to balance than elise or nidalee but it's certainly the case for kiana's different elements rael's mounted and dismounted form horukin's two permanent forms truthfully it does suck that shapeshifters were discontinued don't get me wrong i find jace nidalee nar and elise to be some of the most annoying champions i've ever seen but their designs are very unique and there's a lot more that can be explored if champions could have two distinct forms it's just that shapeshifters conflict with the way league of legends was designed from the start what with most champions being bounced around one passive three basic abilities and an ultimate if there's a possibility that we might see one in the near future they'll probably go down the route to either permanent forms like kane or weapon changes like aphelios i'm not sure if they can do another version of elise chase or nidalee however despite making it sound like designing shapeshifters is a balanced nightmare waiting to happen it isn't impossible the constraints set in place just limit the amount of creative agency in making them and if we were to live those constraints such as the aforementioned having two separate item sets that's going to be a very risky move even so i still think we haven't fully exhausted the range to melee approach but given how much nar and jace are disliked i don't think too many people will be excited to hear about another range to melee shapeshifter now before we wrap up the video i want to talk about today's sponsor squarespace if you're trying to start a business blog online store or website of any sort squarespace is an all-in-one platform that lets you easily make a professional and polished first impression they have some of the best user interface and usability i've seen from a website maker and they simplify the website making process so you can upload images videos add webpages and even member areas to allow exclusivity even if you 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you want to watch more content like this don't forget to follow me on my socials and join my discord server and finally check out my other champion group discussions if you haven't yet but until then thank you all so much for watching and i'll see you again soon for the next one take care [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Vars

Views: 309,397

Keywords: lol, league of legends, champions, riot games, lol champions, lol shapeshifters, lol transformations, lol transforming champions, lol elise, lol jayce, lol nidalee, lol gnar, lol kled, league of legends shapeshifters, shapeshifting champions, lol transformers, league of legends transforming champions, why no one plays, vars league of legends, transforming champions, lol season 11, season 11 discussion, lol discussion, league of legends 11.18 changes, shapeshifter, enemy, msi

Id: sEjtq8Ij1No

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021